The Troy Trilogy by David Gemmell

[Werthead]

My thoughts on Lord of the Silver Bow:

David Gemmell was a prolific and popular author of heroic fantasy, penning more than thirty novels (most of them well-receved) between the 1984 release of Legend and his death in the summer of 2006. His final project was The Troy Trilogy, an epic retelling of the Trojan War, its causes and consequences, marrying the likely historical reality of the conflict (now seen less as a story of doomed love and more the explosion of tensions building up over decades between the Greek cities and the Hittite Empire) with some fantastical elements, although these are mostly restricted to prophetic dreams. Arguably the trilogy, or at least Lord of the Silver Bow, barely qualifies as fantasy, instead more neatly falling into the subgenre of the 'speculative historical' novel shared by the likes of Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles.

The time is three thousand years and more in the past. The world is dominated by the Great Green, the vast sea that divides the Greek city-states (now coming under the dominion of Mykene and its ruthless king, Agamemnon) from the Hittites and their colonies in the near east, Assyria further to the east and Egypte to the south. Lord of the Silver Bow is the story of several individuals. Helikaon, Prince of Dardania, is a warrior and sailor beyond compare, dubbed 'The Golden One' for his legendary luck and pride. He has built the Xanthos, the biggest ship on the Great Green, which sailors fear as it challenges the might of Poseidon. Helikaon is being hunted by assassins and has made an enemy of the Mykene for slaughtering their hero Alektruon, a pirate and reaver, but is unaware that Agamemnon has been told of a prophecy that he will be responsible for Agamemnon's downfall.

Meanwhile, the beautiful Andromache, exiled to the island of Thera by her father, is recalled after the death of her sister and is pledged to marry Prince Hektor of Troy, a warrior of legend. Her journey to Troy brings her into contact with Helikaon and his crew, a meeting that will spark many unfortunate events to come. The last of the three central characters is Argurios, a mighty Mykene warrior who loaths Helikaon, but destiny and honour compel him to fight alongside the Golden One and forge a story that will become a legend across the Great Green and challenge Agamemnon's wisdom and reputation.

Around these three central characters other lives become entangled: Xander, the ship's boy who becomes interested in healing; the strange Trojan girl and prophetess, Kassandra; the Egyptean exiled prince Gershom; the mighty warrior and legendary tale-spinner Odysseus, King of Ithaka; and King Priam himself, a contradictary figure, cruel and hateful one moment, with occasional flashes of honour and mercy.

Lord of the Silver Bow is nearly a flawlessly enjoyable book, with a depth of writing that is hugely engrossing and characters that leap clear of the page in their vividness. Such is the strength of the story that you forget you are reading a story that you know the end of, and the moments in the story that do intersect with the legend are all the most impressive for that, such as when the reader realises that Helikaon is actually Aeneas and when Prince Paris crops up for one of his extremely infrequent appearances. The combat sequences are brutal and convincing; the characters' philosophical musings are short, to the point and do not slow down the action; the drawing of the characters is so well-achieved that some of the deaths at the end of the book are almost physically painful to read about.

Lord of the Silver Bow (****½) is laying the groundwork for the war to come, but is in itself a hugely accomplished and significant epic fantasy novel with enough closure to make it a great self-contained work. The other two books in the sequence are Shield of Thunder and Fall of Kings, which I will read and review promptly.

[Werthead]

And on Shield of Thunder:

Shield of Thunder continues the epic Troy Trilogy begun in Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow. Shield of Thunder was the last book completed by David Gemmell before his premature death in 2006, and was published posthumously.

Rather than picking up the narrative immediately after Lord of the Silver Bow, Gemmell starts Shield of Thunder by focusing on Banokles and Kalliades, two of the Mykene soldiers sent to Troy by Agamemnon to murder King Priam. However, Priam spared their lives as an act of mercy in return for them slaying their treacherous commander. Agamemnon does not look well on failure and now the two Mykene soldiers are on the run. Their paths cross with Piria, a runaway priestess, and mighty Odysseus, whose path leads back to Troy. Back in the Golden City, we are soon reacquainted with the central characters from the first book, such as Andromache and Helikaon, and soon meet important new characters, most notably Achilles, the great hero of Thessaly, who burns to pit his skills of war against Hektor, Prince of Troy.

Shield of Thunder undercuts reader expectations nicely. We may be nearly two hundred pages in before the major characters from the first book reassert themselves, but Odysseus, Banokles and Kalliades are such great characters you barely notice. The writing is as tight as ever and there's much greater humour in the book, particularly the opening sections revolving around the mighty boar Ganny, whilst Banokles' refreshing lack of moral complexity makes him a particularly engaging character: someone who just works out what has to be done and does it whilst everyone else agonises with moral quandaries around him. However, this is the story of the tensions building to war. Gemmell undercuts reader expectations again and again. Paris and Helen are married quite legally and happily at the start of the book but Agamemnon exploits a legalistic loophole to allow him to challenge the might of Troy for her 'capture'. Menelaus, usually depicted as a fearsome warrior, is here a passive man much more at home on his farm than on the front lines. And Achilles and Hektor meeting in the arena prior to their infamous duel on the battlefield may strike some as sacrilege, but it builds up their distant rivalry and thirst to clash in battle all the more effectively.

Shield of Thunder (****½) is an excellent continuation of the story begun in Lord of the Silver Bow and sets things up for the grand finale in Fall of Kings. Shield of Thunder is publshed by Corgi in the UK and by Ballantine in the USA.

[Connavar]

Your first review was so well done.

You can use it for most of Gemmell books. If i werent a Gemmell fan i would jump at the first Troy book after that review

I specially like the parts of the deaths getting to you and the brutal and convincing fight scenes. No one in fantasy makes battles and fight scenes less romantic than DG.

[Werthead]

And finally, Fall of Kings:

David Gemmell sadly passed away after completing about 90,000 words of the third and final volume of his Troy Trilogy. Fall of Kings was completed by his wife, Stella (who was his editor and researcher throughout the trilogy), and published at the end of 2007.

We pick up after the events of Shield of Thunder. The Great Green is beset by war. Agamemnon and his allies (including the reluctant Odysseus) have secured most of the west and are now poised to strike directly at Troy itself. Hektor is leading the effort to dislodge their armies to the south, whilst Banokles - very reluctantly - is commanding forces to the north. Helikaon is ordered to sea, to take Kassandra to the island of Thera, but along the way he meets Odysseus and is drawn into a side-adventure to Ithaka.

Fall of Kings is a worthy conclusion to the trilogy. It's very difficult to tell where David Gemmell left off this work and his wife took over, and it's probably for the best to ignore that diversion and just enjoy the story. This book is, predictably, the story of the siege and fall of Troy, and frankly it may now have to be classified as the definitive modern retelling of the myth. The duel between Hektor and Achilles is here, but with a very interesting spin placed on it, whilst the fate of Helen is beautifully depicted. But it's the end of the book, particularly the last stand of the survivors within the palace of Troy, which will probably live longest in the memory.

Fall of Kings (****) is definitely not quite as polished as the prior two books in the series, but finding out the fates of the characters we have grown to know and love over the course of the trilogy more than makes up for any (minor) weaknesses in the prose. This is a fitting end to a monumental story of war, love and honour, and a grand retelling of one of the greatest myths of all time. Thoroughly reccomended.

The book is available from Corgi in the UK and from Ballantaine in the USA.